Administration Using Automated Responses to the CAS Issue

Since we started urging students to send (polite) e-mails of concern to the head administrators of WLU, it recently came to our attention that the administration has been using canned, automated responses to the inquiries and concerns that students have sent in.

A friend of mine, got this response to her carefully worded concern over the situation of the negotiations:

"Dear Michelle...

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with us. We very much understand the pressures, both on our students and contract academic staff, of a lengthy bargaining process, and we are making every effort to ensure a fair deal is reached as quickly as possible. Since the start of collective bargaining, the university has offered to negotiate evenings, weekends and extra days, in addition to the two one-half days per week that the faculty association has been available. That offer continues to stand, and we're pleased that extra bargaining sessions have now been scheduled.

The university's focus is on reaching a deal, and we are hopeful the situation will be resolved in a positive manner. Contract academic staff members make an extremely important contribution and have a positive impact on the academic experience, so ensuring that they have a fair deal and that our students are not negatively impacted, is our priority."

Here's what my mother received:

"Dear Larisa,

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with us. We very much understand the pressures, both on our students and contract academic staff, of a lengthy bargaining process, and we are making every effort to ensure a fair deal is reached as quickly as possible. Since the start of collective bargaining, the university has offered to negotiate evenings, weekends and extra days, in addition to the two one-half days per week that the faculty association has been available. That offer continues to stand, and we're pleased that extra bargaining sessions are now being scheduled.

The university's focus is on reaching a deal, and we are hopeful the situation will be resolved in a positive manner. Contract academic staff members make an extremely important contribution and have a positive impact on the academic experience, so ensuring that they have a fair deal and that our students are not negatively impacted, is our priority."

Exactly the same e-mail only to a different name.

No one is really surprised by this, here. However, it shows the blatant disregard for students by the administration. While it might be justified as being "time saving" due to the surge of concerned e-mails they have received, it is a badly worded, badly articulated, and poorly constructed stock e-mail that the administration has been using to shove away the concerns of individual students and thus practically ignore them with this automated message system.

This is very insulting, degrading, and harshly rude to the commitment of hundreds of students who have shown initiative in trying to resolve this crisis by voicing their support to the part-time faculty we all dearly love and appreciate. I think, the administration should strive harder to answer the questions and concerns posed by the student body if they want to keep this university as prestigious as it has been for the past couple of years.